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Child benefit not to be used for childcare

Wed., Nov. 9, 2016

Re: Ottawa can shape the future of work, Editorial Oct. 30

Ottawa can shape the future of work, Editorial Oct. 30

Your editorial’s strong support of a strengthened social safety net as part of the solution to support precarious workers is welcomed, especially by the hundreds of thousands of Canadian parents who work one or more short-term or low-paid jobs and still cannot lift themselves above the poverty line.

Indeed, nearly 1 in 3 low income children had at least one parent who worked the equivalent of full time. For these families, the Canada Child Benefit is essential support which helps to reduce hunger and balance the monthly income and expenses.

It’s a mistake, however, to expect families to use the Canada Child Benefit to pay for childcare services. To begin with, far too few parents can find suitable, convenient childcare services. Today’s parents face high childcare fees while also paying down student loans and high housing costs.

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The CCB, as helpful as it is, is not enough to pay for childcare. Low and modest income families need both the child benefit and the availability of high quality, affordable childcare that they can find in their communities as they pursue training and/or employment in an effort to become economically stable.

All other industrialized countries that have significantly reduced child poverty to below 5 per cent have also developed well-resourced systems of early childhood education and care services. Canada must act expeditiously to do the same.

The Star’s editorial advice about strengthening Canada’s social safety net as part of shaping the future of decent work is absolutely right. Your recommendation to “Do more for parents” points the federal government to the “universal, quality, affordable childcare system” young families desperately need.

A recent OECD report on disaffected youth calls out lack of affordable childcare as keeping young women out of the workforce and shows Canadian childcare fees as among the world’s highest.

As this echoes homegrown evidence and experience, it’s not a surprise that universal childcare was among the challenges to the Prime Minister at last week’s Canadian Labour Congress Youth Forum. All signs are that lack of a serious Canada-wide childcare plan — long a women’s equality issue, a poverty issue and an education issue — is also fast becoming a youth issue.

As many young Canadian parents are also those experiencing unaffordable post-secondary education and housing in addition to the “job churn” of precarious employment, it is no wonder.

Your editorial refers to the 52 per cent of workers in the Greater Toronto Area who are “precariously employed in temporary, contract or part-time jobs,” which Finance Minister Bill Morneau suggests is the new normal.

This being the case, your suggestions on expanding our social safety net are welcome – although where the extra money will come from is unclear – but there is no mention of the approximately 100,000 newcomers to the GTA each year and the inconvenient truth that a large number of these people significantly adds to the competition for limited jobs, contributing to the pressure on minimum wages, as well as our real estate values constantly rising beyond the reach of even middle-class salaries.

Your newspaper frequently describes the difficulties of immigrants to our city who are unable to find suitable work or accommodation, although this should not be a surprise when native-born university graduates are increasingly not finding full-time employment or can afford to live here. But given the desperation for an economic quick fix and that the over-indebtedness of our governments and consumers constrains unlimited spending, the federal government plans to increase immigration by 50 per cent.

This assumes that an increasing population increases economic growth and that we need young workers to support our aging society, and while generally true, this is now an outmoded, 20th century solution.

An ever-increasing population and economy is not compatible with the necessity of diminishing our carbon emissions, and automation might end up eliminating more jobs that it increases, apart from the huge loss of manufacturing jobs we have already lost due to our “trade” deals – factors which seem surprisingly absent from government or media analyses.

Robert B. Jaeggin, Toronto

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